Running a website often takes years of time, effort and money. Real estate companies spend thousands, if not millions, in their quest to attract ever more eyeballs.
But what if almost half of the "people" visiting a real estate site weren't people at all? And worse yet, what if a big share of those non-people were there to steal?
That's what a new report from Web security company Distil Networks suggests. The company's third-annual "Bad Bot Landscape Report" found that 54 percent of overall website traffic in 2015 was human -- an increase from 2014.
The rest is from computer programs called "bots."
Some bots, such as search engines that crawl websites, are considered "good." Those made up 27 percent of site traffic last year, according to the report.
But "bad" bots accoun...